Sunday’s 7-hour ocean swim was a triumph for several reasons. The first is that it was conducted against a stiff chop and in warm waters of 78F and with the sun beating down. Regardless, I finished quite strong and walked out quite steady. Secondly, I decided not to take any nutrition during the swim and stopped only twice, just for water. This was on the theory that it is important that the body's physiology learn to break down my fat reserves for energy.
As most readers will know, with prolonged exercise the blood glycogen drops and "hitting the wall" is approached (at about 18 miles for a marathon runner and at about 5 hours in a distance swimmer). Given this reality, it’s important to train the body's physiology to recognize the need to start breaking down fat into glycogen before the "wall" is reached. By going 7 hours without nutrition I must surely have used up all my glycogen stores and began to break down my fat.
The third reason that I consider the 7-hour swim a triumph is that I had a successful experiment with carbo loading by having a good meal the night before then drinking 1400 calories before going to bed and then, after an oatmeal breakfast, another 1400 calories. In the past, taking on such a load has left me bloated and feeling ill at ease. However, using an over the counter digestive enzyme that seems to work for me, I didn’t feel bloated and any later burping carried no traces of the ingested foods/liquids, thus indicating that I was digesting it quite well. This has been a problem for me in the past where I can feel liquids sloshing around in my stomach for hours.
Of course during "the swim" I shall start taking food and water from the second hour on.
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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Topic: Observations on Carbo Loading and Nutrition
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1 comments:
Keep up the effort, do well. Have a great acclimitization. ON this subject of carbs, I recall a science program that may be of small interest. Group of sugar cane farmers, contest to see Which group would do the most harvesting?3 groups: H2O only oral intake, CHO+H2O oral intake, CHO+H2O swish and spit only without swallow. RESULTS IN ORDER: Most to Least. Swish, sugar water, water. Just by the body taste/sense sugar, they seemed capable and did more. Wonder if it would work in your situation, although they only did 8 hour day.
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